I have recently written a series of blog posts about relationships - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model", "Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network", "Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing", "Personal social networks (4th post): birds of a feather flock together" &amp

Personal social networks are hugely important for our health & wellbeing, as I've underlined in the first of this six post sequence - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model".  However our personal networks are also regularly affected by conflicts, especially with those we're close to.  It's not a surprise - if you're very close to someone, it's likely you'll sometimes step on each other's toes.  Here are a set of four slides that illustrate this point:

I've recently written three blog posts about relationships - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model", "Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network" and "Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing".  Towards the end of the second of these posts I said I particularly like the paper "Do birds of a feather flock together?"&nbsp

If you'd like to clarify and potentially look after your personal social network better, a good place to start is to chart it. You can download a simple blank chart here either in Word doc or PDF format.  Filling in the whole "Personal community map" can take a good hour or two, so possibly ... at this stage ... just put your support clique into the most central circle.

I recently wrote a blog post on "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model".  I emphasised the huge importance of our social networks for improving life expectancy, protecting against psychological disorders, and boosting our happiness & wellbeing.  What's not to like?!  I went on to introduce Robin Dunbar's work and his layered model of personal social network structure.  I then talked about the key inner support clique layer.  Outside the support clique is the sympathy group or - stated possibly less awkwardly - outside our very closest relationships we have a layer of close relationships.

Relationships are immensely important for both our health and our wellbeing ... for how long we live, our resilience to psychological stress, and for our levels of happiness & life satisfaction.  This is crucially relevant for pretty much all of us.  The post "Strong relationships improve survival as much as quitting smoking" clearly links the state of our personal social networks to how long we're likely to live.

At the end of last month, a fascinating new research study was published in the open access journal BMC Medicine.  The article is "A randomised controlled trial of dietary improvement for adults with major depression (the ‘SMILES’ trial)" and its abstract reads "Background The possible therapeutic impact of dietary changes on existing mental illness is largely unknown. Using a randomised controlled trial design, we aimed to investigate the efficacy of a dietary improvement program for the treatment of major depressive episodes.  Methods ‘SMILES’ was a 12-week, parallel-group, single blind, randomised controlled trial of an adjunctive dietary intervention in the treatment of moderate to severe depression.

I have written a series of blog posts about the "journey" of kidney transplantation, starting with "Kidney donation: why it's well worth considering" & "Kidney donation: what are the risks?" to the more recent "Kidney donation: the operation & first few postoperative days" & "Kidney donation: more on postoperative management".

I have written a series of blog posts about my recent experience of donating a kidney ... the last was "Kidney donation: the operation & first few postoperative days".  My hope is that these posts will be useful for other would-be kidney donors & their families ... and some of the posts (for example this one) may also be of help for people facing surgery more generally.  As Kortram & colleagues highlighted in their 2014 paper on "The need for a standardized informed consent procedure in live donor nephrectomy: a systematic review" - "Procedures vary greatly between centers, and transplant professionals vary in the information they disclose.

I've woken early.  Lying here I feel an unfamiliar hollow pressure in my gut.  What is this?  Fear?  Anxiety? Tension?  "Tense apprehension" seems to fit.  I'm lying here in the early hours of the morning, a hollow tense apprehension in my belly.  And it isn't surprising.  Pretty normal in fact as I move closer & closer to major surgery.  Consciously.  By my own decision.  On this journey, travelling down the "kidney donation river", I can hear the roar of the approaching rapids.  Surgery soon.  It's a pretty standard, basic, healthy response to tense a bit as I move towards the crux, possibly the most intense section of this "donation river".  And I don't have to tighten the rest of my body around the belly apprehension.  I can let go, loosen in my arms, my face.  It's OK. Nothing to do right now.